[Leica] Digital academia

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> On Mar 17, 2010 at 01:01 PM -0700, John Edwin Mason wrote:
>> BTW, I could also read many of my father's sermons.  At least those that 
>> he
>> wrote on his typewriter.  Quite a few are on 5 and a quarter disks and 
>> were
>> created in Wordstar.  Will I ever read them?  I can't honestly say.
> 
> You might not be able to read them by the time you decide to take a look.  
> I
> have a number of things stored on CD and floppy from when I was in high
> school and college (10-15 years ago) that are gone, either due to media
> corruption or just plain not being able to read the file format.
> 
> Just saying :D
> 
> Digital is wonderful stuff.  So are hard copies.


One can be just as thoughtless about our choice of hard copy storage as we
are in our hard disk storage the result will be the same.
In this case you have floppies instead of hard disks one
 could have their prints on newsprint or toilet paper sitting in the corner
the basement floor instead of 100 percent rag in metal cabinets off the
floor.
My point being its just as easy if not more so to be a bit smart on your
digital backup as trying to backup in print which is really bottom line
unwise on many levels.  Actually I take that back its a lot easier. The
amount of people I've known who have printed archival and stored them as
well are in the zero area.  I do know one or two people who have backed up
on hard drives. Optical disks I just read may be good. Lifting a finger to
check out the situation helps we have the internet now and search engines
there is not excuse for extreme ignorance.



[Rabs]
Mark William Rabiner